


hold your breath

by visenyas



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-13 02:56:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/visenyas/pseuds/visenyas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an exploration of the relationship between haymitch abernathy and the murdered love of his life, the girl back home whom the capitol killed in retaliation for his trick in the Games, here named amber (because seam names are naturey!), on the reaping of each year until the one where he is chosen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold your breath

The tradition of staying up all night together before a reaping began two years ago, with their small, close group of friends, when the pair of them hadn't been more than two longtime schoolmates with a fierce kind of crush on one another. They had kissed for the first time, long and deep, as they had all sat together to watch the sun rise over the edge of the woods. It was a good kiss--a great kiss--but a scared one, too. A just-in-case kiss. And they had held hands on the way to the reaping, not in a pleasantly romantic way, but in a desperate, grasping way; a way that was terrified to let to go of one another. He had stared at her back as the colorful person from the Capitol had reached in to the girls' jar and extracted a name. Amber stared resolutely forward. He held his breath as the name was read, and exhaled when it wasn't hers. And when it wasn't his, he barely heard. He was still staring at her back, at her dark hair shining in the morning light. And then she turned and smiled at him, only just, and as he smiled back, a stupid, relieved smile, he realized that he was holding his breath again.

Haymitch disliked the word love in a half-teenagerish, half-pragmatic way, but he knew that something in the way his hand in her long black hair had felt as they kissed, like the beginning of something and the death of someone, a self that he had once been but with his lips against hers had ceased to be, was different. Was frighteningly, unchangeably, love. 

They'd stayed up all night the next year, too, only then it was just the two of them and instead of kissing in the dirt road as the sun came up they were making love in her cramped bedroom, the morning light pouring through the window as their bodies moved together, with a care that had been reserved for this night, for these touches, for this day, all of which might be the last they shared. They performed the familiar ritual of walking hand-in-hand to the reaping together; of him staring at her back, and her dark hair down it, while she stared bravely forward. And again they smiled at one another when it was done, and again he felt his breath catch in his chest like they were still fourteen and had barely had time to be in love yet. 

As the sun rises on the reaping day of their sixteenth year, they're quiet. The Quarter Quell has doubled their chances of going into the arena, and more than that as the years until they're eighteen run out this annual ritual feels different. It feels like it might not end the same way, with a smile and an embrace and a silent agreement to forget that next year it could be them. It feels like something has to happen; like fate dictates that something horrible must.

Amber kisses his nose and tells him not to worry, not in this precious, potentially-final moment. He's frowning, or scowling--one of the two--and she says she likes it better when he smiles. "It's rare," she whispers. "but we like our just-in-cases on a reaping day, don't we?" 

And so he smiles reluctantly, just for her, and she grins her big and beautiful grin that she, unlike he for her, does not reserve exclusively for him. She smiles as easily as she glares, and he thinks that when he realized that was when he realized he had a crush on her, three years that feel like a lifetime ago. 

 

It's still the same. Hands intertwined and squeezing fiercely as they walk over together, a long kiss before she goes to join her mother and his along with the other women from the Seam; before he takes his little brother's hand and leads him over to the male side of the crowd. 

He still stares at her long dark hair, shining like a beacon even in the sea of dark hair that is the Seam, as the first female tribute's name is called. It's a merchant's daughter, and a whisper of uncomfortable shifting and sighing goes through the crowd, but he scarcely notices. He stares at Amber's hair, swept over one shoulder. At the way there are deep red undertones gleaming in the rich blackness of it, and at the way it looks against the smooth olive skin of her neck. He breathes through his mouth and begs someone--who, he doesn't know--to let the next name not be hers.

It's not. It's a quiet eighteen-year-old from school, a Seam girl, whose mother lets out a loud cry as if she's been horribly wounded. Haymitch knows this girl, and he wants to mourn for her and her family. But it's not Amber, and he is by nature rather selfish. His lips twitch upwards despite himself.

But he's still waiting. Still holding his breath, like he always is, and waiting for her to turn around so that they can smile at each other and rush forwards in a moment and embrace so tightly that it's hard to tell whose limbs are whose. He's almost annoyed, this year. _Would it kill her to turn around right away, just once?_ He doesn't even hear the name of the first male tribute. He's thinking of what he'll say, precisely, to complain about her refusal to look backwards at him when the name of the second male tribute is called and she turns instantly around. Delighted, he grins widely at her. _You read my mind,_ he mouths, but her face is as still and hard as stone. 

He begins to frown when his little brother starts crying next to him. "Hey, _sh_ ," Haymitch whispers, turning to him, vaguely annoyed at him and at his girlfriend. "They'll punish you if you get nois--"

"Haymitch Abernathy," the Capitol agent says into the microphone, more loudly than he had the first time. "Where are you, young man?" 

He feels his heart in his feet, like a stone dropped down a deep, dark well, and turns back towards Amber. She is still staring, her features still unmoving. He sees her lips twitch downwards once, and then he releases his little brother's hand and makes his feet move towards the stage.

 

When they say goodbye she smooths his shirt and his hair without tears in her eyes. "Hey," she says, and even though her voice wavers with emotion she's being so brave that he wants to scream. Because he feels like a coward. For all his scowling arrogance he doesn't think he can do it. He needs her bravery like he needs all of her, and he can't take it with him where he's going. "Mom said she'll make your favorite meal when you get back." She smiles, big and beautiful like she always does, and for the first time he thinks he sees tears in her eyes.

When she blinks, they're gone. "I'll see you then," she says, voice clear and firm.

They kiss with their arms around one another, so hard and hungry and full of grief that it would hurt, if he weren't on his way to dying anyway. He has time to pull her close to him and feel the heat of her one last time before the Peacekeepers come in and pull them silently apart. She fights them a little bit, just enough so that she has time to call, "Hey"--she wriggles valiantly in the grip of the two men that hold her--"and I love you."

And then the door slams before he has a moment to say it back. He kicks the wall uselessly, so hard that his toes feel broken, and exhales slowly.


End file.
